Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I am afraid that I do not. That would be an argument against having different standards—level 6, level 5, level 4 and so on—in the first place. Furthermore, everyone in the industry knows in which direction this is going. We are not talking about standards that will be lower than the national standards. We are talking about standards that will be higher, and aiming towards a point at which everyone knows we will arrive in the end. I do not see how the right hon. Gentleman’s proposal would work in terms of the reality of the industry. My final point is about the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s proposal for eco-cities. It has been mentioned before, and I support it. An interesting aspect of the proposal for Oakington, near Cambridge, is that the site is in public ownership. It is partly owned by the Ministry of Defence. It is also out of town, several miles from Cambridge. Were one to choose an ideal site for an eco-city experiment, it would not be there; it would be much closer to the existing built-up area. An important part of making a zero-carbon community is transport, especially public transport, and although there are proposals for public transport links between Oakington and Cambridge, they are not of the highest possible quality; they would get people from Oakington to the edge of Cambridge but no further. In contrast, Cambridge city council was attempting to apply higher standards, similar to those in the Chancellor’s eco-city proposal, to developments within the city, which would have been better, environmentally, than those at the Oakington site. One of the anomalies of the present situation is that central Government can randomly decide to go forward with such proposals at sites that may not be the best, while at the same time denying local government the right to do exactly the same at much better sites. I hope that the Government will reconsider their view of the proposal, which has all-party support, and on which the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Caton) has done a great deal of sterling work. It deserves support today.